Virtues of ethanol look good to Florida
For a state that imports nearly all its gas, the clean-burning fuel would reduce such dependency and be a boon to farmers in need of cash crops.
By DAVID ADAMS
Published December 17, 2005
MIAMI - Long overlooked as an important source of renewable energy, ethanol appears poised to become Florida's favored new transportation fuel as part of the state's future energy strategy.
The alcohol-based fuel, which can be made from agricultural crops and wood, emerged this week as the potential big winner at the governor's state Energy Forum in Tallahassee.
Rising energy costs and huge population growth in the state are leading the state to explore emerging technologies for cleaner, home-grown "biofuels."
"They (Florida officials) now see ethanol as a real component in the energy solution for the state," said Dr. Anthony Senagore of the Tampa Bay Area Ethanol Consortium, who was invited to the forum as a panelist. "I'm confident it's going to take off."
An Ohio surgeon and president of a Bartow brandy distillery, Senagore is one of a small but growing band of ethanol advocates in and around Tampa who have been pressing for greater state involvement in renewable fuels. This year, his ethanol consortium won a $1.9-million federal grant to experiment planting sweet sorghum to produce ethanol in Polk County.
The quest for alternative sources of fuel is especially relevant to Florida, which is the fastest growing state in the nation and imports 99 percent of its gasoline. This makes the state highly vulnerable to supply disruptions and price shocks, which occurred during the past two hurricane seasons.
A clean-burning fuel, ethanol has the added advantage of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the state has provided negligible funds for biofuels research or tax incentives for potential producers.
Funding dried up several years ago for the only biomass project promoted by the state - an energy crop farm in Lakeland.
Created by the Common Purpose Institute of Tampa, the 138-acre project claims to be the largest of its kind in the country.
Instead, the state has put most of its focus on hydrogen technology and buying a fleet of hybrid vehicles.
In January 2003, President Bush launched a $1.2-billion hydrogen fuel program.
In July of the same year, Gov. Jeb Bush launched H2 Florida, the state's initiative.
Florida set aside $12.9-million to test and demonstrate hydrogen and $2.1-million in new tax incentives. It has 28 hydrogen demonstration projects and 100 research and development studies at seven universities.
However, most industry experts say hydrogen fuel cell technology is at least 10 to 15 years away from commercial viability, and may never get there.
Advocates of ethanol say the technology is available. They point to the success of ethanol production from sugar cane in Brazil, which led to production of a new brand of "flex fuel" car engines able to run on ethanol or gasoline, or any mix of the two.
In the United States, ethanol production also has become a salvation for struggling corn farmers in the Midwest, where fueling stations sell ethanol-blended gasoline.
Critics say biofuels require too much land and are too expensive to produce.
But industry experts counter that advances in technology have brought costs down dramatically and opened up agricultural opportunities.
The departments of Energy and Agriculture published a study in April stating that the U.S. agricultural land and forests could produce enough ethanol "to displace 30 percent or more of the country's present petroleum consumption."
One Tampa company, U.S. EnviroFuels, plans to build two plants in the Tampa area beginning next year. The company will start by importing its biomass from the Midwest before incorporating local Florida crops when they become available.
Senagore's consortium is looking into cultivating sweet sorghum, which has a high ethanol yield, in clay settling areas at phosphate mines. He plans to begin planting next year and hopes to go into full production by 2007.
Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson says the state has the potential to be one of the largest ethanol producers in the nation.
"There's a huge amount of unused land that could easily be turned to material for biomass to create energy," he said. "People are beginning to wake up and smell the coffee. We need an alternative energy source."
Local farmers could benefit by adding a second energy crop to their planting rotation.
Besides maximizing utilization of fertilizer-enriched soils, this could provide insurance if regular crops failed or were lost to storms.
The same applies to canker-ravaged citrus growers who face the prospect of going out of business.
Not only does ethanol use domestic crops, production plants tend to be small and cater to a regional market, making supply more flexible.
Gasoline supplies are easily disrupted since they depend on deliveries from out-of-state megarefineries to three major ports: Tampa, Port Everglades and Jacksonville.
"You are really talking about a true, win-win situation and not pie in the sky," Senagore told Wednesday's forum. "None of this requires any technology leap, any additional input. It really is there right now."
The argument for ethanol seemed to hit home among panelists, including Colleen Castille, secretary of Florida's Department of Environmental Protection.
"We've got to be able to protect our agricultural land because the only other option for them financially is to sell for development," she said. "If we start using some of our waste products wisely and turn them into fuel, then we can address some of those problems."
There was more good news for "renewables" when Gov. Bush told the panel the state had the economic resources to "look over the horizon" and "jump-start an effort to increase investment" in new energy sources.
The panel's recommendations are to be presented by Jan. 16, in time to be taken into consideration for next year's budget discussions.
"There's an awful lot of R and D (research and development) that needs to go on," said Walter Revell, former state secretary of transportation who chaired the state's last major energy study in 2001."Florida should be a laboratory for all of this."
David Adams can be contacted at dadams@sptimes.com